Also Es War So... (1977)

Synopsis
by Clarke Fountain

This children's story tells of Willi (Giovanni Widmann), a backward young lad who has not been able to learn to read and write. As a consequence, he has been put in a "special" school. He gets to travel with a touring theatrical group that does commedia dell'arte performances. Because he sees that reading and writing is very important to these people, whom he loves and admires, he manages to learn to read completely on his own, surprising everyone. It is heartwarming to note that in real life, the film's director "adopted" a gypsy boy for the duration of the making of this movie: he was having the same difficulty in reading as the boy in the story, and he also taught himself to read while no one was looking, precisely as in the story.